We did it! We won the world cup! We developed several world class players through an actual world class development academy, not the façade of one. We crushed the competition in qualifying and were the first team to go through an entire world cup without conceding a goal. After winning the final 3-0 with a Michael Bradley hat-trick, there was little left to do until the USMNT decided to tackle global poverty and world peace.

Well, the pipe-dream was nice while it lasted. In fact, all we did was fire Jurgen Klinsmann. The sheer elation in the dismissal of Jurgen Klinsmann continues to point to the fact that we solved a problem on the surface level, but most haven’t even begun to identify the real problems behind US Soccer and the US Men's National Team, let alone solve them.

We fired Jurgen Klinsmann, and yet there is little to no mention of the fact that we have a “World Class” Development Academy in which players are constantly being priced out from playing the game they love and the game they could potentially contribute to on a larger scale. When the DC United Academy Director (reminder, this is a professional club within Major League Soccer) was asked about whether or not he would want to stop charging youth players in a professional academy, his response was: “No. I think it’s healthy for these young players to invest in their club…I think it’s healthy for these kids to look at this and say, ‘this is my club and I want to be a part of this club’” That’s an MLS academy director equating player investment in a club not with their effort on the field but with their pocketbook, and we wonder why some of our MLS academies continue to struggle. But have no fear, we fired Jurgen Klinsmann!

We have a professional league in which investors have to pay over $100 million dollars simply for the opportunity to play in said league. Not $100 million for players, a club academy, infrastructure, coaching, but the ability to play in a league. We have a professional league in which old, fading stars are payed in some cases 100X more than their teammates, and yet we wonder why this isn’t the league of choice for emerging talent. When those “stars” get tired of the league and decide to return to a more competitive environment, journalists instead spin and laud the fact that MLS was “too hard” for them. We don’t question how a league that rewards mediocrity with draft picks and allocation money can truly prepare players for top competition. We don’t ask whether parity increases development and competition, or creates a sense of complacency. Don’t worry though, we fired Jurgen Klinsmann!

Bruce Arena is being touted as Klinsmann’s replacement. This seems as good a time as any to remind everyone that this is the man who said a few years ago: “Players on the national team should be American. If they’re born in other countries, we aren’t making progress.” On the bright side, with this clear ideology it won’t be hard to convince Abby Wambach to join his backroom staff and head up the new US Soccer House Committee on Un-American Activity! But, we fired Klinsmann so stop complaining!

Ultimately, as we said 13 months ago, and as we are saying again, the nonsensical idea that firing Jurgen Klinsmann solves THE problem with the USMNT is as wrong as thinking Klinsmann has done no wrong. People now celebrate Sunil Gulati’s “courageous” decision, but don’t ask the deeper questions of the system that has allowed for Klinsmann to stay in so long, or that has entrenched Gulati in his relatively secure position.

The country faces a huge issue with stunted investment in a professional game in which monopolies exist only because “that’s how sports are in the United States.” We suffer from a youth development issue in which the majority of players have dropped out by the age of 13. And there’s about ten other issues that we face as a soccer nation that deserve numerous articles on each one.

And yet, in a 1000 word article, I’ve only begun to look deeper than surface level and yet we’ve covered real issues that US Soccer faces. Removing a figurehead that served as Technical Director and National Team Head Coach could certainly be a step in the right direction, and yet when most people have celebrated Klinsmann’s dismissal akin to winning a world cup, you have to worry that perhaps people are still missing the larger picture.

Nuance is hard. It’s easy to think that Klinsmann is THE issue. I would hope that I wouldn’t have to write this article in 10 minutes because it seems that most writers are still busy sending those tweets they’ve saved celebrating Jurgen’s firing. We fired Jurgen Klinsmann, and we are at a pivotal moment in which we could continue to ask questions and put pressure on those who are making decisions for US Soccer, or we can enjoy all those funny gifs of Bruce Arena snarling at press conferences and get that nice, comfy feeling of the pipe-dream coming again.

Paul see if this is relevant, https://www.linkedin.com/post/edit/death-grassroots-soccer-birth-industrial-complex-larry-paul Part 2 will be out later this month.
Pipe Dream, I like it. Besides being a Blues Magoo's song it's spot on. Back to the opium den.

Reply

David

11/21/2016 10:05:46 pm

Hey Paul. Not a coach and don't pretend to know as much as folks who do that for a living. Just a fan. Your points about the larger US soccer situation I for the most part agree with _ there's no doubt that talent gets priced out of the game. But I'd argue that Klinsmann's issues, the one's that cost him his job, have nothing to do with that collection of big-picture problems. He lost his job because the team he put on the field was never better than and frequently worse than the teams his predecessors fielded (and, I think, the talent levels are similar).

Jurgen's team often looked a good deal like what Philipp Lahm described at Bayern Munich under Jurgen -- a group of players given no direction or tactical instruction doing their best to figure it all out for themselves. US players under Bradley and Arena may not have always excited, but they generally didn't look lost.

It's too early to say if Jurgen the technical director was good at his job or not. I like a good deal of what he seemed to be doing on that side of his job, and, in hindsight, I think it was a bad idea to hire him to do both. The jobs are certainly connected, but with our national team they're also almost opposites. The manager needs to get results, now, in qualifying. The technical director was hired to change a culture, from the top down (tough job).

The teams which participate in the world cup try to want to win the cup. When the team reached the Semi-final they people of the country are really hope high for the team. With the help of the Michael Bradley hat trick this team able to win the world cup.